A Regional Archive’s Digitisation Decisions
About this practice test
A regional archive explains how it prioritised digitisation while balancing access, preservation, rights, funding, technical limits, and continued use of original materials.
What you’ll practice
Finding detail
Locate specific information and evidence.
Interpreting ideas
Connect main points and inferences.
Evaluating arguments
Assess claims, evidence, and limitations.
What to expect:
12 questions with explanations to review after submission.
Study the questions and tasks
Work through the material below, or start the interactive practice above to complete an attempt. Try the exercises before opening any answer or transcript sections, then use them to review your work.
- Practice level
- C1. Try this level if you can follow the instructions and understand most of the language; choose an earlier level if you need more support.
- Question formats
- True / False / Not Given
How to approach this practice
Read the passage for its main idea, then return to the relevant sentence or paragraph for each question. Base answers on the passage.
A Regional Archive’s Digitisation Decisions
At Rivermouth Regional Archive, the staff spent one winter debating what should be digitised first and what should wait. The archive held railway maps, newspapers, exhibition material, audio reels, and boxes of private letters collected over a century. A flood barrier had reduced the risk of water damage, but the building remained humid in summer, and researchers were asking for copies more often than they were asking to visit. Mara Ilyin, the director, said digitisation was meant to extend access, not to replace the originals. She also rejected the idea of a universal scan-all policy. Instead, the team built a ranking system. They gave priority to items that were fragile, requested, or likely to suffer from repeated handling. Flat materials came before bound volumes because they could be scanned without forcing the spine; records that required special equipment were postponed unless there was no workable alternative. This is why the railway maps and harbour ledgers moved to the front of the queue, while a stack of audio reels stayed lower on the list. The reels were useful, but the archive already had functioning playback machines and a contractor for audio transfer would have consumed too much of the grant. Mara said the point was to make practical choices rather than chase a neat formula. Money shaped the plan. A regional heritage grant paid for a new scanner, a preservation workstation, and part of the cataloguing work, but it did not cover permanent storage or endless staff time. To avoid creating a beautiful website with little usable description behind it, the archive outsourced only the optical character recognition to a vendor, then hired two local graduates to check the results and add metadata by hand. Their local knowledge helped with old records full of street names and family spellings. At the same time, the archive refused to digitise uncatalogued boxes until they were described on paper, because images without context can mislead users as easily as they can help them. The staff also avoided pretending that technical improvement alone would solve every problem, since description, rights, and maintenance all affected whether the files could be used well. Access, however, was not the same as publication. Some donor agreements still restricted private letters for twenty years, and a few bundles of court papers contained names that the archive preferred to protect. Those items could be scanned for preservation, but their digital copies were not automatically placed on the public site. Instead, the archive prepared low-resolution browse files with watermarks and kept higher-quality versions for scholars who had a clear reason to consult them. Even then, the high-resolution files were not a promise of convenience; they were a way to reduce handling of the fragile originals when on-site consultation was necessary. The technical standards were equally selective. The staff did not attempt to future-proof everything by scanning at the highest possible resolution, because that would have doubled the processing time and produced files too large for their servers to handle comfortably. Newspapers and maps were captured at archival quality, but not at the absurdly fine settings that some suppliers praised in their brochures. Colour calibration charts appeared every fifty pages, not on every page, because the archive wanted reliable results without turning the workflow into a ceremony. Even the scanning schedule reflected local conditions: batches were run after six in the evening, when the old electrical circuits had less heat to contend with. Not everyone in the town agreed with the shift. A few volunteers feared that once documents existed online, people would stop visiting the archive and the building would become a museum of itself. Mara answered that the archive's role was not to protect curiosity by scarcity. In her view, digitisation could draw in family historians, school groups, and remote researchers who would never otherwise cross the threshold, while the people who came for the atmosphere, the advice, or the originals would still have reasons to arrive in person. She did not claim that digital surrogates were equal to the originals in every respect. That distinction also guided what the archive chose not to digitise yet. Exhibition labels, for instance, were already public and not a priority, so the staff spent their limited time on finding aids first. They also postponed a large photograph collection because several images involved living descendants and the rights questions were still unresolved. A more impatient institution might have scanned first and sorted out ownership later, but Mara thought that approach would simply export uncertainty into a larger, faster system. Better, she said, to know what could be shared than to produce an index of things nobody was allowed to use. By the end of the winter, the archive had chosen a middle path: preserve the objects, digitise the records that carried the highest combination of demand and vulnerability, and keep the rest in reserve until the practical and legal questions were clearer. The point was not to digitise everything; it was to buy time, reduce handling, and make the collection legible to people who could not stand in the reading room all day.
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Question 1 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
Digitised copies of restricted material were not placed on the public site automatically.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- True
True. The passage explicitly says that items subject to donor restrictions could be scanned, but their digital copies were not automatically made public. This matches the statement exactly in meaning.
their digital copies were not automatically placed on the public site
True: Correct. Restricted items were scanned, but they were not automatically published online.
False: Incorrect. The passage says the opposite.
Not Given: Incorrect. The publication rule is stated directly in the passage.
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Question 2 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
Mara believed digitisation would reduce every visit to the archive.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- False
False. Mara says digitisation could draw in some users, but she also says people would still have reasons to arrive in person. So she does not think digitisation would reduce every visit, and the statement goes too far.
people who came for the atmosphere, the advice, or the originals would still have reasons to arrive in person
True: Incorrect. Mara explicitly says in-person visits would still matter.
False: Correct. She argues that digitisation would not remove the need for visits.
Not Given: Incorrect. Her view on visits is directly discussed.
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Question 3 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
The large photograph collection was postponed because some rights questions had not been settled.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- True
True. The passage explicitly says the archive postponed the photograph collection because images involved living descendants and the rights questions were still unresolved. That is a direct match.
They also postponed a large photograph collection because several images involved living descendants and the rights questions were still unresolved
True: Correct. The unresolved rights questions are given as the reason for postponement.
False: Incorrect. The passage states this reason directly.
Not Given: Incorrect. The reason is clearly stated.
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Question 4 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
High-resolution copies were supplied free of charge to scholars who had a clear reason to consult them.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- Not Given
Not Given. The passage says the archive "kept higher-quality versions for scholars who had a clear reason to consult them", but it does not say whether those copies were free of charge. The statement adds a detail that the text does not establish.
kept higher-quality versions for scholars who had a clear reason to consult them
True: Incorrect. The passage does not state that such copies were free of charge.
False: Incorrect. The passage does not say they were charged for either; the fee is simply not mentioned.
Not Given: Correct. The passage names the eligible users but gives no information about any fee.
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Question 5 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
The archive used outside help for optical character recognition and local graduates for metadata.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- True
True. The passage says it outsourced OCR to a vendor and hired two local graduates to add metadata by hand. This is a direct match, while the other options would contradict or weaken that clear division of labour.
the archive outsourced only the optical character recognition to a vendor, then hired two local graduates to check the results and add metadata by hand
True: Correct. OCR was outsourced, and local graduates handled the metadata work.
False: Incorrect. The passage explicitly describes that division of labour.
Not Given: Incorrect. The information is stated clearly in the passage.
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Question 6 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
The archive decided against scanning everything in a single project.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- True
True. The director explicitly rejects a complete scan-all approach, so the statement matches the passage. The text does not describe a universal project being adopted; it says the opposite.
She also rejected the idea of a universal scan-all policy
True: Correct. The passage says the archive rejected a universal scan-all policy.
False: Incorrect. The passage clearly says the archive rejected that idea.
Not Given: Incorrect. The decision is stated directly, not left unstated.
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Question 7 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
The archive planned to publish exhibition labels online once the project was complete.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- Not Given
Not Given. The passage only says that exhibition labels were already public and not a priority, so the staff worked on finding aids first. It does not state any later plan to publish the labels online.
Exhibition labels, for instance, were already public and not a priority, so the staff spent their limited time on finding aids first
True: Incorrect. The passage does not state that such a plan existed.
False: Incorrect. The text neither confirms nor denies a later publishing plan.
Not Given: Correct. No future publication plan for the labels is stated.
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Question 8 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
The archive stored all master files in the cloud.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- Not Given
Not Given. The passage discusses storage capacity and says files were too large for the archive's servers, but it never states that master files were stored in the cloud. There is no direct information about cloud storage.
produced files too large for their servers to handle comfortably
True: Incorrect. The passage never says the archive used cloud storage for all master files.
False: Incorrect. The text does not contradict cloud storage directly; it simply does not mention it.
Not Given: Correct. The storage method for master files is not stated.
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Question 9 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
The archive expected digitisation to double the number of visitors to the reading room.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- Not Given
Not Given. The passage mentions that digitisation could draw in family historians, school groups, and remote researchers, but it gives no prediction about doubling visitor numbers or about the reading room specifically. That precise expectation is absent.
digitisation could draw in family historians, school groups, and remote researchers
True: Incorrect. No such prediction is made in the passage.
False: Incorrect. The passage does not directly contradict the claim; it simply does not make it.
Not Given: Correct. The passage suggests broader access, but not doubled reading-room numbers.
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Question 10 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
The railway maps and harbour ledgers remained near the bottom of the priority queue.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- False
False. The passage says that the railway maps and harbour ledgers moved to the front of the queue, so the statement directly contradicts the source.
the railway maps and harbour ledgers moved to the front of the queue
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Question 11 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
Uncatalogued boxes were digitised before they were described so the archive could publish them faster.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- False
False. The passage says the archive refused to digitise uncatalogued boxes until they were described on paper. That is the opposite of digitising first and cataloguing later.
the archive refused to digitise uncatalogued boxes until they were described on paper
True: Incorrect. The archive did the opposite: it waited for description first.
False: Correct. The archive would not digitise them until they were described.
Not Given: Incorrect. The passage directly contradicts the statement.
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Question 12 · True / False / Not Given
Decide whether the statement agrees with the information. Choose Not Given when the text or recording does not provide the information.
Every scanned page was checked with a colour calibration chart.
Return to the passage, recording or visual- True
- False
- Not Given
Check answers and explanations
- Answer
- False
False. The passage says colour calibration charts appeared every fifty pages, not on every page. The claim is therefore directly contradicted.
Colour calibration charts appeared every fifty pages, not on every page
True: Incorrect. The archive used charts less often than that.
False: Correct. The passage says the charts were used every fifty pages, not every page.
Not Given: Incorrect. The frequency is stated precisely in the passage.
What to review next
Find the words that support each answer. For a mistake, compare the question with the evidence and identify the detail or inference you missed.
A focused practice result shows how you did on these tasks. Use several activities across skills to decide what to study next; one practice score does not certify an overall CEFR level.
Before you practise: a worked example
Look for evidence in the text. Separate what the writer says from what you already know about the topic.
The library normally closes at six, but on Fridays it stays open until eight. When does it close on Friday?
The answer is eight. But introduces an exception to the normal closing time, so the first time mentioned is not the answer.
This teaching example is separate from the scored questions. After your test, compare any mistakes with the explanation and revisit the topic before trying again.